Palodios

I give up. Its time.

This is bad logic. They have time to figure it out? There are two possible scenarios: 1) He continues at this level, and they probably won't pay him the 160 million in 2013. 2) He regresses, and the Sox can afford to resign him, but he is nowhere as good, and his trade value drops substantially. Between 2005 and 2010, Ellsbury hit 30 home runs between the minor leagues in the major leagues total. That's it. Six years, he hits 30 home runs, and now he's on pace for 30 this year, and everyone thinks he's going to do it for years to come.

Well, now its a game.

So um, I just turned this game on, and its 8-1 A's.... 8-2 A's, but still.

Welcome to Talksox.

Gio Gonzalez is a tough lefty. Ofcourse Mcdonald will get priority over Crawford. His .150 average against lefties is way better than... oh wait. Fun fact about Gio-- he has a 2.36 ERA at home, and a 4.50 ERA away.

Starting pitching on the free agent market costs significantly more than outfielders. The Red Sox would probably need to spend 5-10 million on a starting pitcher for 2012 anyway. Also, the point wasn't that Felix will turn into Pedro. The point was that Felix may not have hit his prime yet.

Doesn't make a difference. The Sox can beat the tigers. The Sox can beat the Rangers. The Sox can beat the Yankees. Rest the starters.

I'll believe it when he I see it.

Oh, craigslist women...

I don't mean to trade for one of those 1-b type guys. I'm talking about trading Ellsbury for a bonafide ace. Josh Johnson, Felix Hernandez, Clayton Kershaw. If a deal can be done with him and maybe one or two top prospects, I'd say do it, if not, keep him.

Bedard will be evaluated in November. No sense in giving money to an injury-risk player if he might not even help this team.

Starting pitcher is violatile at high levels, sure. But there are some guys that everyone sees coming, and knows they are going to perform at a high level for years to come. Hernandez and Kershaw are the only two guys of that caliber on s***** teams that come to mind. What concerns me is that they may not have seen this coming. I don't think they saw Ellsbury getting 12 million in arbitration in 2012, and yet it very well may happen. If they come up short as far as money is concerned because of him, I would hate to see it limit what they can do in free agency.

I actually had this exact idea in one of the other threads. Ellsbury is a perfect "sell-high" candidate, whose price is only going to skyrocket. In a three team trade with maybe one or two other prospects, I bet the Red Sox could get an ace for him. Personally, I say pull the trigger, but its not exactly a popular move.

Oh, ofcourse. The problem would be keeping the boats on top of it rather than beneath it. Plus, I'm going to take a guess and say that the rental place is probably going to close up shop.

I had a big cookout planned on saturday, and a kayaking trip sunday. Yikes.

What I absolutely loved about Lackey last year is starting to come true this year. He pitches 6-7innings every game, and gives up 1-4 runs. He doesn't throw a shutout one day, and get lit up the next. In his last nine games, he's pitched fewer than 6 innings exactly one time, and given up more than 4 runs exactly one time. If you look at the raw stats, he's had a terrible, s*** poor season, but somehow he still has 12 wins. How? He's giving the offense a chance to win. On any other team he'd be 4-15, but he's fought out some wins here this year.

I appreciate the compliment, its definitely mutual. I'm not saying I'm done with Crawford, by any means, whatsoever. I will still continue to have faith in him and root for him, but as far as the money goes, I think most of us have established he's not worth it, whether he's an excellent player or not. 20 million per year contracts should be reserved for five tool sluggers and top of the rotation starters. If they had more room under the luxury cap, it'd be a different story, but 20 million could go very far in this organization.

When Crawford comes up to the plate, do you feel any more confident in him than Reddick, Drew, or Kalish? At this point, he just feels like a #7. This year, Carl Crawford has produced .5 WAR. To put that in perspective, Darnell Mcdonald has produced .4 WAR. Buchholz is out. The team is beaten up, and hasn't gotten any kind of help from its farm system this year, outside of some production from Reddick. Philadelphia is an unstoppable force. I just don't think that holding onto a player with such a high potential to be a bust is better than giving the team an opportunity to win in the future. And its not like it will hurt their public image with the fans, because he's had such a rough year that he hasn't taken with the fans yet. That being said, no one will claim him.

Seriously, I gave you a compliment. Stop making it personal. You have many thousand posts. I am not going to respond to something you said several months back when what you're saying right now is incredibly relevant to what I have to say now. When I tried to discuss a specific argument, like the slug being unsustainable, you completely hid away from actually discussing the topic, and instead turned it personal, and into an analysis of my logic instead of defending your arugment. You said that you don't think he's the answer at catcher, and that his stats are a classic sign of a fluke. I argued that point, and then you replied by saying that that wasn't what you meant, despite me quoting you. If you want to recant a statement, fine, but don't say that "that wasn't what I meant" when based on what you said, by all accounts is a a very explicit statement. It seems that whenever I paraphrase you, in any way beside an absolute word-for-word, you get offended, and whenever I actually quote you, I'm taking it out of context. Defend your statements instead of attacking my terminology.